Life is like a chess game, who is in charge? Zhang Yong's "Advanced Thinking" and Leverage, the Second Curve and Long-Termism in the AI ​​Era

*▲ Zhang Yong’s “Advanced Thinking”: Life is like chess, those who understand the game survive, those who break the game survive, and those who master the game win. *

In recent months, I always see similar looks in some corporate education and training situations. It was a look that was mixed with anxiety, confusion, and a hint of reluctance. The person asking the question may be a middle-level executive who is confused by AI tools, a senior designer who is worried about being replaced in his profession, or a middle-aged worker who is watching his peers switch to self-media one by one, but he is still stuck in the same place.

They ask a variety of questions, but they all boil down to the same question: “Teacher, am I about to be replaced? What should I do?”

To be honest, I don’t always have the perfect answer. But when I recently read Zhang Yong’s new book “[Advanced Thinking: The turning power from tens of millions of debts to an ideal life, using “leverage thinking” to pry open the second curve of counter-trend growth] (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0011051176?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202605)”, I repeatedly stopped, took notes, and even wrote my own response in the blank space of the page. This book talks about the deepest confusion in the hearts of this group of people - when the external environment changes drastically, when life stages enter a crossroads, when the original familiar work logic gradually fails, how can we improve ourselves?

Zhang Yong uses one sentence in the book to set the tone for the entire book: “Life is like a chess game. Those who know the game survive, those who break the game survive, and those who master the game win.” I think this sentence hits the point more than ever when I read it today.

People who have come out of tens of millions of debts are not talking about learning about success, but about learning about structure.

When many people read the title of the book “Advanced Thinking”, they may think of the common success books in the market, the kind of books that are full of slogans, suitable for posting pictures on Facebook or Threads, but then forgotten after reading them. But Zhang Yong’s book obviously does not belong to that category.

His personal background is unique. He was once a senior director and regional chief strategist of a listed wealth management company. Later, he fell down hard and went from being worth tens of millions to being heavily in debt. It took another ten years of accumulation before he regained his footing and found his own leverage for a comeback. He is now the manager of “Zhang Yong Talks Finance”, a financial blogger with millions of fans, and a visiting professor at the School of Business Administration of Chongqing Technology and Business University.

This period of life makes what he writes carry more weight than the average successful person who has never fallen. Many seemingly plain sentences in the book have traces of real wounds behind them. For example, he quoted Rockefeller in his preface: “Success is a process, not a result, and this process is connected by work.” If this sentence comes from a person who has everything going smoothly, it will seem a bit hollow; but if it comes from a person who once had tens of millions of debts and got back on his feet, the weight is completely different.

More importantly, the narrative logic of this book is not “I succeeded, so you can too”, but “I saw the structure clearly, so we can think together”. The entire book has ten chapters in total, ranging from leverage, planning, self-control, and learning to leadership, workplace, family, wealth, financial management, and long-termism. It is essentially a life system diagram for readers.

For someone like me who has long been concerned about content strategy, knowledge work and personal branding, this kind of structured thinking is far more useful than any chicken soup for the soul.

Leverage Thinking: Core Competencies Re-amplified in the AI Era

If I were asked to pick a concept with the most contemporary value in the entire book, I would choose “leverage thinking” without hesitation.

Zhang Yong said in the book: “What we are pursuing all our lives is leverage.” This sentence may seem like a golden sentence at first, but it actually contains a deep insight. The so-called leverage means using smaller inputs to achieve greater results. In the industrial era, leverage might be capital, connections, or brands; in the knowledge economy era, leverage might be content, community, or intellectual property; and in today’s AI era, the form of leverage has once again been drastically rewritten.

In the past ten years or so, I have observed a phenomenon in corporate education and training and university classes: those workers who can truly convert one to ten, or even one to a hundred, are never the ones who work the longest hours, but the ones who know how to use leverage best. They may use a precise piece of copywriting to leverage hundreds of thousands of traffic, they may use a set of automated processes to replace the trivial tasks of the entire department, or they may use a course system to turn the experience of the past ten years into a resellable asset.

AI is currently the most powerful and most underestimated new lever.

When I led the [Vibe Coding Practical Workshop] (https://www.solo.tw/courses/vibe-coding), I repeatedly emphasized one thing: AI is not a tool used to replace people, but a tool used to amplify people. The question is, what is being amplified? If a person’s own judgment, expression, taste and integration ability are weak, AI will only amplify his mediocrity into mediocrity on a larger scale. But if a person has a clear thinking structure and deep domain knowledge, AI can increase his influence exponentially.

This is exactly what Zhang Yong reminds in the book: “You can only make money within the scope of your cognition.” The cruelty of the AI ​​era is that it turns cognitive gaps into income gaps faster than any era in the past. Leverage amplifies not only advantages but also disadvantages.

The second curve: not to change the runway, but to recombine existing assets

Chapter 6 of the book talks about the second curve of career. This concept comes from Charles Handy, but Zhang Yong’s interpretation gave me new inspiration.

When many people hear the words “second curve”, their first reaction is: “Should I change careers?” But Zhang Yong clearly points out: “Changing careers is a new start, not a complete reset.” I think this sentence should be engraved on the desk of everyone facing a mid-life career transition.

My own experience in the past few years is actually a second curve. From early digital media editors, to content marketing consultants, to corporate lecturers, part-time university lecturers, etc., on the surface, they are constantly crossing boundaries, but in fact, the core competencies have never changed, such as: writing, communication, knowledge organization and teaching design. Over the years, I have also organized this process on [my personal website] (https://vistacheng.com) and [various link entrances] (https://vista.st), so that people who know me in different fields can quickly find the corresponding content.

This is the true meaning of slash thinking and personal branding that Zhang Yong talked about - it is not a random combination, but using the same set of underlying capabilities to grow different flowers in different fields. What we really want to cultivate is never a thicker resume, but a set of capabilities that can be transferred and combined repeatedly.

For Taiwanese readers, this concept is particularly important today. The environment we live in is experiencing triple pressure: the industrial structure is shifting from manufacturing OEMs to high value-added services, AI is fully penetrating all walks of life, and career extensions brought about by the aging population. This means that almost every worker will have to face the transformation of the second curve at least once (or even several times) in his life.

The problem is, most people don’t panic and jump ship until the first curve starts to fall, and by then it’s too late. Zhang Yong reminds us: The second curve must be laid out when the first curve is still at a high point. This is truly advanced thinking.

Long-termism: the most scarce accomplishment in the era of short-term audio and video

Chapter 10 of the entire book talks about “Continuous Improvement: Becoming a Long-termist”, which is the part that resonates most with me.

We live in a TikTok-ized era. Short videos, instant feedback, hit-making logic, and emotional blackmail marketing have cut most people’s attention into fragments of a few seconds. A blockbuster film may become famous overnight, but it may also be completely forgotten three months later.

In such an environment, “long-termism” has almost become a contrarian choice.

Zhang Yong wrote very sincerely: “Success = work + family + wealth + happiness.” This formula seems simple, but to maintain the dynamic balance of the four in real life, what is needed is not passion, but long-term patience.

In the past few years, I have observed friends around me who really live calmly and can continue to produce. They have one thing in common: they are all compound interest workers. They may only write five hundred more words, read ten more pages, or meet one more interesting person every day, but over twenty years, the gap will be so large that it is difficult for others to understand.

This is why I have been insisting on writing articles every day on vista.tw (https://vista.tw), hosting communities every week, and continuing to hold classes every month. Not because the short-term rewards are so tempting, but because I believe in what Zhang Yong said in his book: “All superior abilities are actually long-planned.”

Three reading suggestions for Taiwanese readers

After reading the entire book, I would like to provide three reading suggestions for Taiwanese readers from the perspective of a content worker and educator.

First, some of the cases and contexts in this book are based on the workplace and financial environment in mainland China (for example: chapters on funds, insurance, or family asset allocation). Taiwanese readers need to switch to the local financial tools and tax environment when reading the financial management chapter. The thinking framework in the book can be adopted as written, but the operational suggestions may need to be localized. Second, the personal brand and slash discussed in the book need to be combined with the market characteristics of small and beautiful in the context of Taiwan. The reason is simple, because Taiwan’s market is not large, but it is deep enough and the cost of trust is relatively low. This means that we are more suitable to follow the personal brand route of precise niche + deep trust, rather than blindly pursuing traffic.

Third, the greatest value of this book lies not in providing answers, but in providing ways to ask questions. I suggest readers not to read it page by page as a textbook, but as a comparison chart of life stages. Go back to it every one or two years, and each time you will find the reminders you need most at the moment in different chapters.

Conclusion: When the game of life reaches the middle game

As I write this, I think of Zhang Yong’s words in the book: “Life is like chess. He who understands the game survives, he who breaks the game survives, and he who masters the game wins.”

For me, from writing, teaching to community management in the past few years, I have actually been practicing the process of moving from recognizing the situation to breaking it, and then to taking charge. At each stage there will be new anxieties, bottlenecks and temptations, but also new levers, curves and possibilities.

If you are experiencing some kind of mid-level anxiety recently - whether it is a career barrier, a turning point in life, or confusion in the face of the AI ​​era - I would recommend you to read Zhang Yong’s “Advanced Thinking”. It won’t give you immediate answers, but it will give you a map that will accompany you for a long time.

And true advancement is never a one-time jump, but a deliberate effort day after day.

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📖 Book purchase link: [Zhang Yong’s “Advanced Thinking: The turning power from tens of millions of debts to an ideal life, using “leverage thinking” to pry open the second curve of growth against the trend” (blog)] (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0011051176?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202605)

🛠️ Want to turn leverage thinking into a work that can be launched online? Welcome to sign up for my Vibe Coding Practical Workshop.

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